Pleasantly inert

When I told Joe I was going to do a blog posting, he asked what on earth I was going to write about. I said that I would say, "Joe saw an elephant. I saw a snake. Love, Dick."

And that about sums it up. We did have a very pleasant five days visiting our friends Poe and Simon in Hua Hin (Wah-HEEN). That's a resort town 100 miles south of Bangkok on the Gulf of Thailand. While there, however, we didn't do much except sit by their lovely cobalt-blue-tile pool in the shade of their sour tamarind and quinine trees. We did rouse ourselves from time to time to walk on the nearby beach, where seried rank upon seried rank of immense middle-aged Swedes were voluntarily barbecuing themselves to death. Whatever happened to the gaunt white Swedes of The Seventh Seal?

Thanks to Poe and Simon, there were motoring excursions, too. We went to Petchburi, with its summer palace of King Mongkut (a scientist and linguist who never hopped around blurting "Is a puzzlement!"), and a temple with three magnificent golden Buddhas. We also wandered around the pleasant old town, which Simon judged a success because it contains relatively few people like himself in it. That is, British ex-pats living princely lives with their vaults overflowing with dollars and pounds. The farang tourists are starting to return, incidentally, following the political crisis that closed the Bangkok airports for ten days in December. But the economy was irrepairably damaged and nearly all the political factions seem determined not to let that happen again.

Our other outing was to an agricultural research farm that specializes in medicinal herbs. The place is famous for its traditional Thai massages. These are two-hour splendid indulgences that finish up with a hot poultice of camphor and tumeric. The four of us lay on adjoining platforms under a high thatched roof and were worked over by local ladies who train for years in this arcane style of massage. It seems to involve insinuating the masseuse's complete body weight, through her fingers, into the client's joints and muscles. These women have an exquisite sense of the precise point where pleasure and pain meet, and when the massage is done you float up and out and feel reborn for quite some time.

Mostly, we have lived from wonderful meal to wonderful meal. Poe and Simon know all the best Hua Hin outdoor joints for $3 dinners of green curry, noodle soup, spicy green papaya salad and squid red curry. Despite Western influences nibbling at the edges more and more, Thai food remains the most satisfying cuisine on earth and one of the most healthful.

We returned to Bangkok on Sunday---on the relatively pricey Dusit Hotel bus, and not on what the local ex-pats call "the danger bus"---and have been (a) doing some practical stuff and (b) enjoying the Chinese New Year celebrations. Many Thais are ethnic Chinese, so the lunar new year is a big deal here. This morning, we happened upon a holiday extravaganza at the Silom Central Mall. Hundreds of firecrackers were set off to scare away evil spirits (the shaky Berkshire Mall might want to try this), and then an enormous dragon entered the mall to bless the businesses within. The thing was a good sixty feet long, red and yellow, with a big angry puss, tongue poking out, and was carried aloft by dancing boys in costumes. A drummer and two sets of cymbles made for an infernal clanging and banging, and the whole thing was quite a sight undulating up the escalator in the mall atrium and then poking its head into ShangriLa Kitchen, near the food court, and the Gucci sun glasses store.
There's nothing the Thais love more than a holiday---there are dozens each year---and this is one of the big ones.

Meanwhile, we fly tomorrow to Laos, where we will meet our friends Jack Prebis and Jane Campbell Beaven for some exploring of the northern mountains. Plus, we'll celebrate Joe's fiftieth birthday in Luang Prabang on Wednesday, no doubt with more firecrackers and dragons. The Laos have been alerted. They like a holiday, too.